“The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun light. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others…”
—The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins-Stetson
Yellow: The colour of Happiness…
Or is it?
Whilst researching how other authors tackled the subject of domestic abuse in fiction, I came across deliciously creepy short story by 19th Century female American writer, Charlotte Perkins-Stetson, called, The Yellow Wallpaper.
The main character (We never learn her identity) writes incognito diary-style entries, describing the “ancestral halls” she and her physician husband, John, have rented for the summer, while she recovers from a nervous condition (It suggests post-natal depression), and endures “rest cure.”
At first she refers to the horrible yellow wallpaper that adorns her room as a mere irritation, moving on to describe the beautiful gardens and grounds… But her mild annoyance turns into obsession, and before the reader realises it, they are as engrossed in the hideous wallpaper and its apparent psychological effects as she is.
I was mesmerised by Stetson’s language and descriptions, and rendered almost nauseated by the unease I felt by the end of her story!
She describes the pattern as “Sprawling [and] flamboyant committing every artistic sin…” and how it “Lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.”
Despite having been written in the 19th Century and referring to very common practices and treatment of women in that era, it appears ahead of its time, and is cited as an early example of domestic abuse in literature.
But it is the almost supernatural and anthropomorphic qualities of the wallpaper itself, coupled with the twist at the end of the story, that has influenced and inspired me to reference The Yellow Wallpaper in Ella’s Ghost.
In my novel, the colour yellow becomes symbolic of the abuse my main character, Ella, experiences; the yellow wallpaper in their bedroom appears to move—be nourished, even—whenever the abuse occurs. This is a jarring juxtaposition to what yellow is commonly considered as: Joy, sunshine, happiness, flowers, Spring…
But who chose the wallpaper in the first place? You guessed it…
So, why is yellow so important to Dominick? What does the colour yellow symbolise for him?
You’ll have to read Ella’s Ghost to find out…!
“There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will.”
—The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins-Stetson